In 2015, after returning from my second JavaOne conference I decided that we needed a Java conference here in Montreal. With Dawson College’s support I created a NetBeans Day. It was onsite at the college in January 2016 just before students returned to classes after the holiday break. Some speakers came to the college, and some presented online. We had almost 50 people, mostly students, in attendance. I organized a second NetBeans day in 2017. For 2018 I renamed the conference DawsCon. That year all speakers came to the college. In January 2020 we had just over 500 attendees. Dawson College covered all expenses making the space for the conference available at no cost and we even had a sponsor in 2019 and 2020.
When the pandemic hit, the 2021 conference went online. It was then that I began the JChampions Conference, also online, where the presenters were developers who had been awarded the title of Java Champion.
As a side note, in 2018 while introducing Venkat Subramaniam’s session I was interrupted by Henri Tremblay who announced that I had received the title of Java Champion. I had no idea this was in the works and consider this one of my proudest moments.
Another side note, in 2020 I was approached by a private company to speak at their online conference. Attendees paid $300+ to watch sessions and the presenters, of whom I was asked to be, were paid nothing. I figured that if I was paid nothing then the people who watched me should pay nothing. This was the inspiration for the free online JChampions Conference.
I retired from the classroom at the end of the 2021 school year. I did continue organizing the JChampions Conference. This year is its 6th anniversary. This means that I have been organizing conferences for 11 years, every one of them free to attend or watch.
Visit our YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@JChampionsConf/streams, to watch this year’s sessions as well as all previous JChampions Conference sessions.